Thinking: Gathering Heroes En Masse

One hero is rare enough, a group of them should be virtually inconceivable. I think some games in the roleplaying genre (particularly JRPGs, but I might be blowing smoke) take for granted that groups of adventurers are formed. I mean, there’s something inherently wrong with most adventurers, that they’d risk bodily harm to see their goals met. Be it personal freedom or saving the world.

Every hero is just a little bit crazy. In a rare and special way. The justification is often enough that they’re loner freaks, who’ve been orphaned and/or have no friends or family. Revenge is actually kind of a freakish thing, that something happened to you that messed you up so much that you should wish physical harm and death on something, and you actually do it. Wanting it? Okay. Doing it? Crazy.

It takes something weird and special to make a hero. Keep in mind, revenge is hardly a happy thing. You have to be kind of weird and crazy to carry it out, and staying on the path of truth and righteousness afterward? Extra difficult. Revenge is best avoided for hero stories, if you ask me. In that case, you really need something else, and that’s personality. The character needs the background and the motivation.

If you want a group of five heroes, that means five backgrounds, and five motivations. It has to be real, because it’s a roleplaying game. If the background and the motivation don’t jive, then why do you care about the character? …Sorry, went on a tangent.

Having one hero ought to be worthy of an origin story all of its own, and the meeting of two heroes should be a significant part of the story. You know, like crossover events in comic books? It should be more like that. Actually assembling a team of heroes (however heroic they might be in reality) should be a big deal, and it rarely seems to feel that way. Massively Multiplayer games take this to an extreme.